...that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits, or magic wands. Language upon a silver tongue affords enchantment enough. - Salman Rushdie

Language upon a silvered tongue affords enchantment enough.

It is very, very easy not to be offended by a book. You just have to shut it.

There is no right in the world not to be offended. That right simply doesn't exist. In a free society, an open society, people have strong opinions, and these opinions very often clash. In a democracy, we have to learn to deal with this. And this is true about novels, it's true about cartoons, it's true about all these products.

Only the foolish, blinded by language's conventions, think of fire as red or gold. Fire is blue at its melancholy rim, green in its envious heart. It may burn white, or even, in its greatest rages, black.